


Elemental

by domesticadventures



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Episode: s06e20 The Man Who Would Be King, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-20
Updated: 2016-01-20
Packaged: 2018-05-15 02:51:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5768560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/domesticadventures/pseuds/domesticadventures
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They say you shouldn’t build a home in a person. He looks at Castiel with his face lit by the flames, the ring of fire surrounding him, separating them from one another, and he feels like his house is burning down.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Elemental

**Author's Note:**

  * For [propinquitous](https://archiveofourown.org/users/propinquitous/gifts), [some_stars](https://archiveofourown.org/users/some_stars/gifts).



He tells Castiel he doesn’t remember their first meeting.

He remembers hell, of course. Not all forty years of it, but bits and pieces here and there, flashes of heat and pain and despair. More than enough to haunt him.

It comes back to him, sometimes, when the smell of sulfur is strong enough. When he catches, from the corner of his eye, the last low glow of dying embers. When he digs a knife into someone else’s flesh or feels a knife digging into his own. Sometimes it sends him back there, if just for a moment.

The first time Castiel heals him -- that sends him back, too.

A feeling washes over him, the sweet, blissful relief of the first sip of cool water on the hottest day of summer magnified a thousandfold. He recognizes it, that cool burst of grace flowing under his skin, knitting him back together.

He wonders how he could have forgotten. Hopes he never forgets again.

He keeps chasing the feeling, even after there are no more wounds for Castiel to heal.

\--

There is something about Castiel that is _more._

Jimmy was a salt of the earth human, but Castiel has taken that base and added to it, has become something solid and unyielding. He doesn’t move unless he chooses to. Trying to force it is an exercise in futility. You’ll break your hands against his surface before you induce even the slightest shift.

Dean had managed it once, though, or at least Castiel had let him manage it. Had let Dean place a hand on his shoulder, spin him around. All that grace condensed and crammed into this human form, all that power Dean still can scarcely comprehend, and Castiel had let Dean have the upper hand, even if just for an instant.

Dean will never forget that moment. It had been like watching the earth turn.

\--

As it turns out, Castiel is neither unstoppable force nor immovable object.

He bleeds. He dies.

He disappears.

He manages it all the time, in fact. A sound of beating wings, of the displacement of air, and Castiel vanishes, goes somewhere Dean can’t follow.

He leaves, over and over again. He does it by choice.

Dean isn’t sure he’s always going to come back.

\--

Dean measures how much he loves people by asking himself whether he’d run into a burning building to save them.

He’s always putting his life on the line, but flames licking up the walls have a certain way of making him feel small and weak and helpless. He has to really give a shit about someone to be willing to endure that particular brand of suffering on their behalf.

He knows from experience he’d do it for Sam, throw himself back into the worst night of his life for his brother’s sake. There are a few others, too. He can count them easily, doesn’t need anything more than his fingers.

They say you shouldn’t build a home in a person. He looks at Castiel with his face lit by the flames, the ring of fire surrounding him, separating them from one another, and he feels like his house is burning down.

“You have to run,” Castiel is saying, and even as Dean turns to go, he’s imagining himself breaking the circle with his boot, stomping out the flames. The sky is black with smoke and everything is coming crashing down around him, but still he wants to reach across the threshold, pull Castiel to safety.

He looks back over his shoulder one last time before he goes.

He fights the urge to set himself on fire.


End file.
